Civil Air Patrol wins ‘excellent’ rating

MONTROSE — Colorado’s Civil Air Patrol recently scored the highest grade given by United States Air Force evaluators in 16 years: the excellent rating.

“We were all set for bear, and we were just pretty proud of that,” said Ray Ross of the Montrose CAP.

The USAF evaluates Colorado units for one week every two years. This year, Montrose hosted Cortez, Durango and Grand Junction CAP squadrons.

According to the CAP, while Mark Young of Montrose served as the incident commander at the command post in Greeley, Montrose hosted the staging base for the West Slope’s evaluation activity.

Four planes flew simulated search and rescue, photo reconnaissance and Homeland Security missions from Cortez, to Rifle, to Monarch Pass, while cadets ages 12 to 18 served as base security, manned radios, tracked operations and deployed ground teams to assist “crash survivors” and “lost hikers” the planes located.